Orgfiller

Yankees by far. When the Red Sox are good they're generally a close second. Rays have been the ultimate pain in the ass since 2008 and they've had our number since, but it's harder to hate a team that's just smarter and better run than you, and they have no fans lol. On the other hand, the Yankees and Red Sox historically have always been able to throw money at their issues which was particularly annoying when the Blue Jays weren't flexing their financial muscle as much as they have these last few years. Both fan bases are insufferable, and they usually have a number of players that are easy to dislike. The Orioles are annoying but they're kind of the little brother of the division, wanting to be as good and successful as the rest but generally not coming close. Their fans might be the most annoying relative to team success in the division.

Mostly luck, their Pythag W-L has them as more of a 32-35 team as opposed to their true record of 35-32. Sometimes teams with elite bullpens like the Padres can outperform their Pythag record since they're more likely to win close games, 1-run games, etc. since once they have a late lead they might be more likely to maintain it. It's mostly luck though. Their inter-league record is 14-7 and the AL has been quite weak this year, so that's helping them stay above water.

Unfortunate for them that this was the first wrong call in MLB history, and their s***** pitchers couldn't bear with the stress of not being granted an additional, desperately needed out.

TJStats tracks the power as unremarkable/notably below average, and vastly overperforming his contact quality, but elite contact rates, walks, good speed - 18 SB to 4 CS - and elite defense. Very interesting to see the Brewers invest so much money into low power, defense first prospects with good hit tools. Both guys have been promoted aggressively and backed it up however, so it's looking like a worthwhile gamble assuming the defense translates.

The main thing for SWR to maintain is the location more than the stuff. Obviously when his stuff is this mediocre to begin with, 87 to 94 is a significant jump, but it's even more important that he's hitting the spots consistently. When he was serviceable for the Twins the Stuff+ was bad - 90-91 but the Location+ was 97-106. He needs above average command to be valuable or he's going to get crushed.

Have to imagine those ankle injuries are catching up to him. Obviously he could've just peaked athletically already and is in somewhat of decline, but just in 2024 he was 89th percentile and tanked to 65th the following two seasons. His lower half might be kind of f***ed and I'm not sure if there's a way back to that. It's affecting his base running but surely it must also be affecting his hitting.

The return of Nance is honestly a sight for sore eyes in the middle of the bullpen. Whenever Varland and Rogers are unavailable every 3 days (since they pitch every game), we've been throwing out some serious scrubs to cover those innings. Nance isn't pushing for stealing the closer role but having a decent middle reliever back never hurts. Hopefully we can add Yimi Garcia to the mix before long and our bullpen depth will be truly tremendous.

Druw Jones is the same age that Jake Cook is now (younger, even). There's a very high chance as things stand that Cook can't even make it past AA.

This team eats aces for breakfast. Should be an easy 5-3 win.

That reads like Anthony Gose to me, except Gose was always quite young for the level. Yes yes I know Cook is fairly new to hitting and blah blah blah. The strikeouts are a bit concerning to me if he's to be a slap hitting CF defense demon.

Heineman kind of ruins it, but decent looking lineup against righties. The lefty facing lineup remains god awful as long as Sosa exists, but at least Lukes can't really be any worse against them.

You can see he was still hitting guys pretty often late in his career even after he solidified himself as a good starter. My guess is the backdoor breaking ball was clipping a lot of lefties' feet when he was aiming for the dead zone location.

Here we go again with the BABIP ********.

Probably 2027 unfortunately. If for no other reason than to manage his innings this year.

Miles looking superb again. What a pickup.